What is nautical gate?

Answer 1

Gate is an archaic dialect of the word 'gait', meaning method or style. Thus, a 'nautical gate' is a sailor's style of walking or marching. The most well-known use of the word is in Cream's song Pressed Rat and Warthog, where there is a play on the word's first usage, to the second usage where 'The bad captain madman had ordered their fate. He laughed and stomped off with a nautical gate. The gate turned into a deroga tree and his peg-leg got woodworm and broke into three'. The second usage infers a wooden swinging gate, as would be the case if one had a wood leg. Here the captain's arrogance and bad karma caught up with him as one's fate tends to do.